And One More Thing....

Years ago, just a few months before Matt performed the proper and very old-fashioned act of asking for Ann's hand in marriage, Blake penned a wry, wondering, and almost touching, essay about being the father of the bride...and just one step on the road to...being a grandfather.  Embedded in the piece was a daydream, a tableau, of Blake sitting on his front porch surrounded by and dispensing words of wisdom to a circle of grandchildren. 

What makes this a mere vision is the notion that Grandpa's grandkids would sit still long enough to receive much less pay heed to grandfatherly advice. Not to worry, because Grandpa Blake is more into teasing and kidding and telling stories to the young ones than waxing philosophic.  He marshals his punditry and saves his very strong opinions for, say, the management of the St. Louis Cardinals...

He's full of advice for Mike Matheny!

And what about me? If the life I am living doesn't exhibit what I have believed or have learned, then my stint as a sage should be pretty short and as highly regarded as Grandpa's tall tales about going to Texas....

Nonetheless....

To: Aaron and Lizzie,  Gabe and Abbie, Josh and Levi:

Be curious.  Ask the question, learn the name, make the trip, read the book, take the class.  Be enthralled with your surroundings and walk with your eyes and ears open to the details and wonders around you.  You will amass more books than you will ever read and chances are you will forget names and places and dates you should remember...but you will have known them once and might still get asked to play Trivia.  

Do one more thing before you go to bed.  Achieving one task no matter how mundane before you sleep makes you feel as if you've got a leg up on the next day.  So put the coffee cups away or start the wash or match some socks....Or maybe that's just me....

Play music, sing music, listen to music.  The cares and worries of the day will fade to gray and you will be refreshed.  Your music brain will ''cure what ails you."  In the same vein, read your Bible.  Not just in times of need, but routinely. Read a Psalm, or a Letter, or some of your Lord's Red Letter Words to His disciples.  Practice makes perfect...in music...and routine makes for good habits makes for self discipline. Romans 5:4 puts it this way: "and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."

Lift up your face to the world.  Smile at those you meet or give them the good old country wave.  Take a good look around as you go on your way. Your moms and dads are doing a great job of teaching you to work and study and be kind.  I'm just reminding you to multitask and be cheerful at the same time.

I would tell you to plant flowers, but that might be too much pressure! Just because weeding and dirt, daylilies and terracotta are home for me doesn't mean that flowers will be for you. But taking pictures should!  Reflecting on the past cannot help but reinforce an attitude of gratitude, whether boisterous or pensive, joyful or tearful.  Enjoying the good times as recorded in pictures stretches time, brings loved ones from the past to the present and places and stories long gone and forgotten back to mind. Take the pictures....and tell the stories to your children...and your grandchildren...as they gather around you on the couch.

Or on that front porch....

Oh.... one more piece of advice.

Visit your grandma.  

Janus

When summer opens, I see how fast it matures, and fear it will be short; but after the heats of July and August, I am reconciled, like one who has had his swing, to the cool of autumn.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every year, August lashes out in volcanic fury, rising with the din of morning traffic, its great metallic wings smashing against the ground, heating the air with ever-increasing intensity.

Henry Rollins

"All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world."
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Where do you come down on August?  Thumbs up or thumbs down? Does turning the page fill you with foreboding? Or regret?  Do the days of August flutter away into the haze as the Monarch butterflies migrate?  Or do you feel trapped, cramped, imprisoned by heat, humidity, insects, or regret for the promises of summertime unfulfilled? Is Nature's bounty a cornucopia of tasty treats to be savored fresh today and preserved for the cold days tomorrow?  Or do you avert your eyes from the jungle of foxtail, bindweed,  grasshoppers and assorted crawly beasties that used to be characterized as a garden? Do you anticipate the broadcast of your favorite baseball team...or have pre-season football rankings captured your allegiance?

Like Janus, August is two faced, a time of beginnings and transitions, of doors and gateways,of change. August has one foot in the door of summer and one on the steps of fall. 

A quick trip through Augusts past confirms these dual personalities:

August is a month of fairs....4H and FFA, hogs and sweat, mud and sand and ribbons.

Following the fairs..and the conclusion of projects four-legged and not, August is a time for vacations, for seeing America, for keeping cool, for catching up with friends and family far away, for one last hurrah before school bells ring.

It is the month of farewells...as sons and daughters go back to college...or leave home for the first time.

August is a month of storms.  When we first came back to farm, we'd watch the weather map anxiously, waiting  for a Gulf Coast hurricane to come up from the south, break the July drought, and give our soybeans a good soaking.  More recently, August has blown in violently with destructive winds  flattening the ripening corn and turning the mum patch into a tedious game of 5000 pot pickup. August giveth and August taketh away. August can be synonymous with catastrophe.

But August can be a time to gather as well.  To dig and dry the onions when the ground softens.  To take advantage of all the ways that tomatoes can be canned. To choose the magic moment for picking grapes for jam that glows in a jar like the visual essence of summer. For eating apples off the tree while we water, grabbing a half dozen to bake the first new crop apple loaves, setting aside a half bushel in the 60 year old frosty refrigerator to use til the winter apples come in.

 August is a month of cakes and celebrations.  If  we all lived closer together, we would barely finish one round of desserts before we would blow out the candles on another one with three birthdays in ten days. Levi's birthday starts the birthday fortnight, a continuing feast of thanks for  him, for Ben on the 15th and for Matt on the 20th.  August: a month of new lives and new beginnings in our family.

If you are country people like we are, August brings  a new school year.  The kids have gotten their letters in the mail assigning them to their new classes in their new grade. The school supplies await in plastic bags and almost everyone needs new tennis shoes and jeans.  Aaron and Matt start EA football practice and Lee will drive Gabe over to Burlington Junction to learn the ropes of flag football.  Abbie and Lizzie sign up for the fall's dance classes with Miss Annie.  Josh will start back to Honeytree.  No more kids' laughter at the pool, no more wet towels and swimsuits for the puppies to chew through at the farm. Summer may not end with the advent of school, but the swimming season does.

And, finally, way at the end of August,  we raise our glass for one more celebration.  Some years we mark it; some years it gets no more than a passing mention.  But years ago, when we believed we were grownups, Blake and I wed, and somehow, through all the years, we have held tightly to that partnership, that bond, as we raised our children, struggled with our business, enjoyed the ups and endured the downs of both, and gloried in the happiness and blessings we did not earn.  August may show us its happy face or its scowl from one year to the next, but on the 27th, we breathe a sigh of relief and say, Thanks! Made it another year!

Bring on September!